


I’ll Close My Eyes, You Click Your Heels

by hostagesfic



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Domesticity, Fluff, Friends With Benefits, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-05
Updated: 2013-06-05
Packaged: 2017-12-14 00:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hostagesfic/pseuds/hostagesfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry will be away, and Nick won’t see him for months. Nick tells himself he’s just getting used to that ahead of time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’ll Close My Eyes, You Click Your Heels

**Author's Note:**

> For Ari @frankoceaned on twitter in celebration of her completion of a project! S promised her Nick/Harry and she said she didn’t care what sort, so this is a bunch of feelings (some of them a little angsty). We hope that’s alright.

Nick texts Harry at 6:15 a.m., _your hair is ridiculous._

It isn’t that he’s being spiteful, isn’t that he knows Harry has his text alerts from Special Contacts set to a staccato series of vibrations and that Nick’s seen him fall asleep with his phone on his chest or face enough times to also see him flail into consciousness as it goes off. 

Or maybe it is, a little, but mostly it’s just that 6:15 a.m. is when Nick actually sees the photos of Harry in London the day before. He’s spent his morning chasing Puppy and her star-crossed canid lover, and he’s breathing hard when he jostles into the back of the cab and checks his whatsapps from the team. There’s only a fiesty flamenco dancer to welcome the new morn from Fiona, and he’s got four minutes to burn, so he taps into tumblr and searches Harry. And his hair _is_ ridiculous. The text is entirely justified. 

Nick doesn’t expect an answer, though. 

He isn’t even hoping for one.

Really.

He isn’t disappointed when the cab pulls up to the studio and the latest message in their conversation thread is still his.

;

Nick lets almost the entire intro play that morning. It’s pretentious and overblown and still everything he despises and ridicules, but he can’t think of anything to say over it, or a good reason to just cut it off. In the end he starts a song, but it starts badly and he drifts off, waves away Finchy’s questioning look with a physical hand gesture. “Thought I’d just end while I’m ahead,” he says, and his phone buzzes, screen lighting up on the desk, _H. Styles_. 

Nick’s mind goes blank. He says something about it being a great day, if you’re up, although you’d have to be up to listen to the radio, and then he pauses, because he doesn’t know if Harry is actually listening to the radio right now, but he might be, and if he is, he’s probably laughing at Nick. 

Nick closes his eyes and tries to get to the two-minute mark of his show without swearing. 

;

_you woke me up_ , Harry’s text reads.

_don’t you have things you need to be doing,_ Nick responds, and glares right back at Finchy when he tries to shame him into putting his phone down.

_nope_ , Harry sends back. 

Nick’s finger hovers and he switches the next two songs so Aloe Blacc bursts to life across the commonwealth. 

It only takes a moment for a new text to appear. Nick can see Harry’s inclined eyebrow and pursed lips. _I don’t think a single lie-in will break my bank account, but i appreciate your concern_. 

Nick doesn’t have a response for that that isn’t petty, _I’m NOT concerned about you, I don’t even CARE what you do with your life or your money or your face_ , so he picks up the gossip rag Fiona has graciously brought to work for research and reads about Tulisa’s shoes instead.

;

Nick doesn’t actually think Harry needs to work more.

Honestly Nick thinks quite the opposite, but every time he’s said so Harry brushes him off, or worse, just shrugs helplessly. Nick knows all about Harry’s horrific beliefs in duty and responsibility, how seriously he takes the whole pop star business at times. He just wishes Harry would be more careful about it all. 

But he can’t stop Harry, can’t get in his way or even slow him down. Nick promised himself he wouldn’t, too long ago, and it’s the one promise he’s kept, in regards to Harry. 

;

Nick wasn’t supposed to muck around with Harry. It had been a joke at first, Aimee watching him watch Harry on the telly and pinching his thigh. “Your face’ll stick that way, Grimshaw,” she’d said, and. “How old is he again?”

Nick had rubbed his leg and moved away from her down the couch, “Not like I’ll ever do anything about it, Aims, let me perve a bit.” 

Except that, well, Harry had happened. 

Harry with the ingenue eyes and the smart fingers, the wide mouth that tripped over it’s own stories of getting caught in bed with two girls at the same time and the first time he got drunk and let a boy come on his face. 

It’s all jokes, all Harry looking up to Nick and trusting him enough to confide in him all the silly, ridiculous, dangerous things he’s managed to discover about himself in his seventeen years. Until it isn’t, and Nick knows so much about this kid that he could burn his career to the ground. But he doesn’t, because by that time, Nick’s already fucked up the next promise he’d made himself concerning Harry Styles.

;

By the time Nick gets out of the meeting finalizing Wednesday’s playlist, Harry’s texted him three more times. There’s a picture of some truly awful boxer pants, a series of question marks and _would you wear these or no_ , followed up by an invitation to lunch. 

Nick doesn’t reply until he’s halfway through lunch with Gillian. It’s at least a little passive aggressive, which Nick will readily admit. Nick’s life of late is a seesaw of selfishly wanting all of Harry’s off-time to himself and the need to pettily ignore him for the times Harry’s brushed him off.  

He apologizes, even if it’s only _soz, out with gills!,_ because he does feel a bit bad, a bit depressed that he’d missed the opportunity to see Harry’s stupid face in person, tweak his mop of hair as it deserves. He knows that Harry will be gone, soon, off to the big U.S. of A., and it’s not like Nick’s a girlfriend who can join him on tour for a week. 

Harry will be away, and Nick won’t see him for months.

Nick tells himself he’s just getting used to that ahead of time.

;

Harry comes over that night, and Nick has a take and bake brie in the oven, has sliced up some pears to go with. It’s supposed to be his treat for the week, because he’s been so good about his diet recently, even if he can’t quite manage to get into the gym as much as his trainer would like. He’d also texted Harry a picture of it in the grocery, and Harry had responded _mmm creamy_ , and Nick had rolled his eyes and picked it up. 

Harry gives him a hug that lasts until the timer goes off, and then darts past Nick to peer into the oven, coo appropriately over the golden crust and bubbling middle of the brie. He flails a hand out demandingly, until Nick gives him the mits, and Harry lifts the pan out carefully. Nick switches off his oven before he forgets (they’ve been down this road too many times before, cooking together). 

They move around each other too easy in Nick’s kitchen. Harry knows where the knives are, where the silverware is kept, and he fetches them as Nick gets down a plate, swipes a handful of napkins. They settle in the living room with the brie and the pears and a box of crackers for Harry, and Nick turns on to the recorded episode of Sweat the Small Stuff. He’s taken to critiquing the shows after the air, just so he can avoid any particularly awful hand gestures for the next shoot. 

It’s more awkward, with Harry there, but when Nick goes to change it, he shakes his head, mumbly but insistent around a mouthful of cheese and pastry. “I haven’t seen any but the first ‘un,” he says. “Wanna see your show, Nick.”

They watch it through and by the end Harry is kneading Nick’s leg like a cat. Which may be the reason Puppy is lounging across the room under the table that houses the record player, looking at them from time to time with something close to amusement on her doggie face. Nick just knows that she’s waiting for them to take it to bed so she can pee on his rug or something. 

Harry tips his heavy head onto Nick’s shoulder with a huffed laugh as the credits roll and Nick cuts off the telly. He can feel Harry’s breath on his neck, uneven from the giggles and hot like Harry always is, running a few degrees warmer than Nick even in summer. Nick wants to know why that is, why Harry always has to be that little bit _more_ than him in everything, a little bit ahead in every way, but he’s afraid of the answer, afraid it’s just the way it is. 

Nick’s always been afraid of being left behind.

So he lets Harry nuzzle his throat and trail his mouth up to the soft skin behind Nick’s ear, trace the line of Nick’s jaw with his tongue. He inclines his head and lets Harry lick into his mouth, lets Harry pull them upright and cradle Nick’s face in his large hands, tilt his head down for deep, searching kisses. They feel like _more than friends_ , like they always do for Nick, and Nick closes his eyes and lets Harry guide them to bed.

;

After they fuck, Harry falls asleep on his stomach beside Nick, face pressed to Nick’s shoulder and the sheets, hands bunched in the pillow above his head. Nick watches him for a minute, stays long enough to see the last bit of tension bleed out of his shoulders and his ribs to swell with the steadiness of sleep, and then tears himself away. 

It isn’t late, although they took their time, and Nick stands in the shower for nearly half an hour, letting the hot water pummel his back and chest, letting the ache swirl down the drain with the water, sudsy from his shampoo. 

The water is still running warm when the bathroom door opens, and Harry trundles in, rubbing at his eyes. He’s naked, of course, like he is still, always, when he can get away with it. Nick lets himself look at Harry’s half-hard cock as he approaches. Harry laughs, hoarse from earlier and from the short nap, and steps into the shower behind Nick, draping himself over Nick’s shoulders, tweaking his nipples. 

“Oi, you child,” Nick says, mildly. 

Harry’s grin is warm and cutting against the back of Nick’s neck. “Hey, old man.” His hands wander down Nick’s chest, through the dark hair there, to his stomach, to his hips and into the patch of curls at the base of Nick’s cock. 

Nick closes his eyes and breathes the moment in; water and shampoo and arousal, the smell of sex still strong on Harry’s skin. 

“Let me suck you off,” Harry says, stroking Nick’s cock twice, fingertips caressing the head even though he’s not completely hard yet. 

Nick smiles and turns in Harry’s arms, kisses his cheek gently. “No,” he says, and Harry’s face falls until Nick kisses his upper lip, whispers the words against his open mouth. “Let’s go back to bed first.”

;

That time, Nick falls asleep first, his nose in Harry’s sweaty curls, his arm around Harry’s waist. It’s as vulnerable as he can let himself be with Harry, trusting him like this, and he knows that Harry will be there when he wakes up. He’ll putter around the kitchen, making Nick an omelette as Nick feeds the dog, and he’ll draw Nick in with sweet, tooth-paste tempting kisses. Nick’s cab will arrive and he’ll be late, again, leaving because he’s shit at leaving Harry, for all the times Harry’s left him.

Harry will go back to sleep in Nick’s bed, and when Nick comes home it will be neatly made, a note on the pillow detailing whatever plans Harry has made for himself on this nearly last day of his time in London. 

And Nick will pull back the duvet and curl up in the middle of his bed, his nose pressed to the sheets that still smell of the two of them. He won’t keep the note. 

He’ll just wait for Harry to come back.

 


End file.
